The cloud computing services currently undergoing a rapid and continual growth provide users with centralized processing resources over networks via remote data centers that perform information processing of data such as sensor information. Cloud computing services therefore create problems in network communication such as lower reliability, greater response delays, and low energy efficiency.
Aware of these problems with centralizing information processing such as of sensor information at a single data center point, the present inventors made repeated studies on ways to eliminate the above problems by performing information processing such as of sensor information as near as possible to the information source (See Hiroaki Shikano and others, “Proposal and Evaluation of Efficient Sensing Information Technique”, IEICE technical report, vol. 109, no. 436, CS2009-81, pp. 47-52, March 2010; and Michitaka Okuno and others, “A Study on Distributed Information and Communication Processing Architecture for Next Generation Cloud System”, IEICE technical report, vol. 109, no. 448, NS2009-204, pp. 241-146, March 2010).
One example of a technology for pooling of sensor information is a sensor terminal device for remote monitoring control systems of the related art that notifies a management computer over the Internet when specified conditions in the results processed from the sensor output were fulfilled (See Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei11 (1999)-252670).